Later on, Gardella introduced Mayor Velez, who highlighted that Cartagena is a city where big decisions are made for the future of the world, which is going through a new era, due to globalization and climate change issues. “Governments around the world are taking on responsibilities with the design and implementation of initiatives and alternative strategies to reduce the impact on environment. The nowadays city faces many challenges, while mass transit concentrates the actions from companies and governments towards a more sustainable mobility. In this sense, natural gas for vehicles emerges as an effective option to get savings and environmental benefits for the development of a modern urban transport, and Cartagena is not going to get behind in this transport revolution. Next year, with the support of the national government, the city will benefit from the new Transcaribe system featuring a fleet of 640 CNG-powered buses, which could generate savings of up to USD 83 million within 15 years. Welcome to Cartagena, a city that supports the use of natural gas vehicles,” Velez said with enthusiasm.
On behalf of the Colombian Ministry of Mines and Energy, Beltrán Quintero highlighted “this type of event, with such high technical background” and said: “We are a leader country in natural gas vehicles in Latin America. As a resolution of the minister Amilcar Acosta, we want to relaunch the CNG program in Colombia, and we have just entered into an agreement to install a fueling station in La Guajira to support it. Currently, we have 460,000 NGVs and the goal is to double that number through the program.”
Moreover, Goldin expressed his enthusiasm to see the interaction between the public and private sectors in order to protect the future of coming generations. “Natural gas is a sustainable solution as it has economic, ecological and social benefits for the whole community, in a context where markets are growing hand in hand with new developments that provide greater availability of gas, such as renewable natural gas that will further boost the industry. We are pleased and happy to support this event,” said NGV Global director.
“Colombia is an important NGV market and our goal is to share our Italian experience with you. We need to join global efforts to ensure a better future for generations to come,” commented Baroni, president of NGV Italy.
On behalf Bongas, Yuri Velez Trujillo spoke about the beginnings of the NGV industry in the country, which just took place in Cartagena. He also stated: “Undoubtedly, people in the NGV business are on the right path, not only because it is lucrative but because it is one that generates welfare and future. We cannot forget that we live in a world increasingly crowded and polluted. In this sense, the vehicle fleet is a major ally of the polluting industry. So it is important that the world’s population and governors as well as automakers, manufacturers of engines and the industry in general are aware that CNG is very important, not only to save money from users but also to preserve life on our planet.”
Other speaker was Cardona, who repeated the importance of these events to give the message to all Colombians on the role of natural gas for vehicles, which “still has plenty of room to grow.” “We believe in key projects, such as the integrated public transportation systems in the country. Our company is involved in the commitment to continue growing with CNG in all areas,” said the executive of Gas Natural Fenosa.
“We want to deliver two messages: one is the great opportunity the country has, with 26 years of history in the NGV business and a reinforced natural gas pipeline network and coverage level that has been developed. Automakers also believe in this Colombian reality. There is a great capacity but we believe is under-deployed. In this sense, we must enable its widespread use and disseminate its benefits. The second challenge to face is that over the past 20 years, safety and quality standards have been important and now we have the opportunity to implement a new technical regulation for the operation and installations at conversion centers. In these next two months, we must focus on aligning product certification processes,” expressed Muñoz from Terpel.
Finally, on behalf of the company EPM, Chadid stressed the importance of all events of this kind, in which the opportunities offered can be fully exploited. “In such events, we learned many wonderful things and we managed to make different contacts. We must take advantage of the information and take all the best to our cities and companies,” he expressed.
